Thaindian News

Kolkata, Sep 1 (IANS) Thirteen-year-old Shiven Khosla of India pulled off an upset win over Grandmaster Sundararajan Kidambi in the opening round of the fourth Kolkata Open Grandmaster chess tournament here Tuesday.
Khosla, the reigning Asian under-14 champion, accounted for his fancied compatriot in only 20 moves of a Ruy Lopez game that saw Kidambi blundering a piece on the 17th move to throw in the towel a little later.

The tournament, boasting of the strongest ever field in Asia, saw top seeded Shakriyar Mamedyarov (2,721) of Azerbaijan come up with an impressive performance in his 39-move win over India’s B.S Shivanand at the Gorky Sadan.

Mamedyarov drummed up a kingside attack, forcing Shivanand to resign when he was about to be checkmated.

Fifth-seeded Azerbaijani GM Gadir Guseinov put up a good show as he took 28 moves to get the better of International Master V. Saravanan. Playing with white pieces in a Sicilian defence, Guseinov sacrificed an exchange to win his opponent’s onway to logging a full point.

In another minor upset, third seeded Ni Hua of China was forced to split points with Rahul Sangma in 46 moves of a French defence. Fancied Indian Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi was also held by International Master Vikramaditya Kamble.

After a few dropouts, the headcount at the tournament stood at 114 participants, with 34 Grandmasters and 27 International Masters. Grandmaster Arun Prasad withdrew at the last moment because of illness.

Important results:- (first round)

GM Shakriyar Mamedyarov beat B..S Shivananda; GM Ni Hua drew with Rahul Sangma; GM Gadir Guseinov beat IM V.Saravanan; GM Aleksej Aleksandrov beat Aditya Udeshi; Praveen Kumar lost to GM Mamedov Rauf; Parimarjan Negi drew with IM Vikramaditya Kamble; Anwesh Upadhyay lost to GM Le Quang Liem